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Afghanistan roundup

The first thing that caught my eye today was another report by Dexter Filkins in the NYT, this time about Hamid Karzai going to Kandahar and trying to drum up support for the coming NATO offensive against the local Taliban. This report seems to somewhat contradict Filkins’ earlier piece from last week (The Country Estate discussed it here) about Karzai’s lack of belief in NATO’s success and his increasing efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.

Key quote:

“This operation requires sacrifice, and without sacrifice you cannot restore peace to Kandahar,” Mr. Karzai told the gathering of about 400 leaders from around the province.

“Will you help me?” Mr. Karzai asked.

And many, if not most, stood up and declared they would.

Let’s assume Karzai is really in Kandahar for the right reasons and really is trying to rally the locals behind the NATO offensive. Are his desire to root out the Kandahar Taliban and his desire to negotiate with the Taliban for his own political future mutually exclusive? No. For one thing, the Taliban is not a monolith. Karzai might easily have a problem with the Kandahari Talibs that other Taliban leaders/negotiating partners would support him in resolving. For another thing, I think the more likely answer is that Karzai may well want to use NATO forces as a way to put the Taliban under pressure and maybe even weaken them, which would probably strengthen his position versus theirs at the bargaining table. In any case, I suspect his motives aren’t pure unless he had some magical epiphany as he was being wined and dined in Washington this spring.

Later, I came across another NYT story about a host of new mineral deposits being discovered in Afghanistan. The piece reads quite optimistically, hoping that these mineral deposits might offer a way for traditionally poor Afghanistan to make money outside of poppies/heroin, corruption and foreign-funded military operations.

It’s nice that they discovered such natural wealth on hand, but I see no reason why Afghans will treat these mineral deposits with any less corruption than they treat any other resource right now. Am I being unfairly pessimistic?